It was a momentous occasion and was understood to be such.

The vote seems to have been reached in the late afternoon.

Anxious citizens were waiting in the streets.

There was a bell in the State House, and an old ringer waited there for the signal.

When there was long delay he is said to have muttered: "They will never do it! they will never do it!" Then came the word, "Ring! Ring!" It is an odd fact that the inscription on the bell, placed there long before the days of the trouble, was from Leviticus: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." The bells of Philadelphia rang and cannon boomed.